Blogs

In any discussion concerning DRM, there are bound to be honest questions and misconceptions that keep being repeated. Without a resource to accurately respond to them, some small misconceptions can turn into popular belief.

The Guide to DRM-free Living is consistently one of the most comprehensive and sought out resources of the Defective by Design campaign. This guide empowers users to access media without compromising their freedoms.

The seventh annual International Day Against DRM featured a glamorous
petition delivery, awareness-raising events on three continents, and
ebook sales from prominent DRM-free publishers. Some of the Day's
highlights included:

In celebration of International Day Against DRM today, we rolled out the red carpet at W3C to deliver your petition signatures. Internet freedom's most stylish gathered to present W3C with an award for "Best Supporting Role in 'The Hollyweb'," accompanied by over 22,500 verified signatures from members of the public who oppose a proposal that would weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into the fabric of the Web.

The fight to keep DRM out of HTML is heating up. This Friday, Defective by Design will pay a visit to the Cambridge, MA, office of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to hand-deliver our petition against the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal (EME).

International Day Against DRM is this Friday, May 3rd. People all over the world are going to be showing their opposition to DRM, and you can join them!

Organize a local event today and we'll help you promote it. An event can be as simple as tabling at your campus, handing out information at a library or bookstore that offers ebooks with DRM. Find out if there's a local event near you. If there isn't, get one started!

Today Defective by Design, through the Free Software Foundation,
joined twenty-six other organizations in releasing a joint letter to
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Web's standards-setting body,
condemning Encrypted Media Extensions (EME).

Hollywood is at it again. Its latest ploy to take over the Web? Use its influence at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into HTML5 — in other words, into the very fabric of the Web. Millions of Internet users came together to defeat SOPA/PIPA, but now Big Media moguls are going through non-governmental channels to try to sneak digital restrictions into every interaction we have online.

Online self-publishing platforms have lowered barriers for authors to get their works published, giving rise to a new kind of literature that works without big publishers. Lulu is one of the most popular solutions for writers to easily sell their works in print or as ebooks. A few years ago, they defended their DRM-encumbered ebooks, but they have just announced that they are saying goodbye to DRM.

The fight against DRM often pits us against some of the biggest companies and the most dominant ways of thinking in the technology business. What gives us the independence to speak out -- and the power to make your voice heard --is the support of our members. Now, we need your help to keep Defective by Design strong in 2013.

Holiday season is upon us, which means a bombardment of advertising for the latest and greatest tech toys, and the onslaught of enticing deals is extremely effective. On Cyber Monday, hordes of virtual shoppers took to the Web in search of the newest gadgets to bestow upon their loved ones.

Imagine if you came home and discovered all of your bookshelves ransacked, their contents nowhere to be found. That's what happened to Amazon customer Linn, but the bookshelves were digital. Three years ago, Amazon showed the world that they have the power to delete copies of books from readers' Kindles en masse, and now they are finally taking heat for exerting this power over readers' entire libraries.

The success of DRM-free bundles has been a powerful counterargument to the claim that Digital Restrictions Management is necessary for sustainable digital publishing. These bundles are forming around music and literature, and really showcase being DRM-free as a major selling point. Now, the Big Bang Bundle by StoryBundle has just launched, and the Humble Music Bundle has just a couple hours to go!

We've just finished a major update of the Guide to DRM-free Living with dozens of new places to get ebooks, movies, and music without DRM and a page of worst-offenders. There have been some exciting developments in the realm of DRM opposition on ebooks, like Tor/Forge dropping DRM on ebooks, and we wanted to spruce up the guide to reflect all the progress that's been made.

Blizzard has released the long-awaited game Diablo 3 to much fanfare,
and yet to many gamers, much disappointment and frustration because of
the game's DRM system. It requires a permanent internet connection to
play -- moving much of the in-game interaction and logic to the
network. Blizzard is using Diablo 3 to operate an online auction
house, using real-world currency or in-game gold, which in turn can be
exchanged between players to purchase weapons, materials and upgrades
for your in-game character.

The largest science fiction publisher in the world, Tom Doherty Associates (whose labels include Tor, Forge, Orb, and Starscape books) announced on Tuesday, April 24th, that "by early July 2012, their entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free."

Speaking at the Digital Book World Conference in New York last week,
Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of Anobii, urged major book publishers to
abandon their use of DRM on ebooks. HarperCollins, Penguin, and Random
House each have a stake in the ebook retail and social networking
company based in the UK.

Boston's Louis CK has a new show on his website, but he's doing things a little differently with this one. To quote his site: "No DRM, no regional restrictions, no crap. You can download this file, play it as much as you like, burn it to a DVD, whatever."

Thinking of doing some holiday shopping? We hope that when purchasing
for loved ones and friends that you'll consider avoiding companies and
products designed to restrict freedom and consider supporting
companies and organizations that defend freedom.

To help you make informed shopping decision and to avoid products that are defective by design, we've put together a short
2011 Holiday Buying Guide. We will be updating the guide throughout the holiday season, so please keep coming back for new tips and suggestions.